Some photos of the chainline on the Rudy Fat, although this bike is setup with a single front ring you can see it will clearly take a double without tyre/chain rub. The spec is a Zee chainset with 32t absoluteBLACK chainring, 11-34 cassette, Northpaw 29+ rim with Knard 29x3" tyre at 120tpi @15psi

How Fat can you go on the Fat Race? Here are some images of the chainline. Small chainring to larges sprocket at the back. Component break down, Fat Race titanium frame with 100mm english thread bb, e13 trs double, Surly Nate 120tpi tyres on Marge lite rims

Its been a crazy couple of days with a number of publications and websites picking up on the Rudy Fat 29+, custom builds seem to be rolling in daily now. These are some of the places that Rudy appeared...Fat Bike.com, Singletrack Magazine and Ride Fat Bikes.com

I took some shots earlier to show how much snow/mud clearance there is on the Fat Race. The tyres are Surly Nate 120tpi at about 14psi. There is 2.cm gap on either side left and right as the widest part of the tyre and 2.1 cm gap at the center point of the tyre.

Right, first things first, I don’t want a fat bike. Don’t get me wrong, they look cool andwhenever I see one I get a big smile on my face, But I don’t want a Fat bike. I have way toomany bikes. Most of which, surprisingly, are working at the moment. So no more bikes anddefinitely not fat ones. I do love talking bikes with Michael of Travers Bikes though andwatching him build up his new business, as he designs and then produces anotherprototype which then leads to a production model lifts my usual standard day to day lifeinterspersed with too infrequent cycling trip masquerading as a training ride.

“I tell you what Michael, if you can build a fat bike in time for this year’s Thetford 12 hour‘Dusk 2 Dawn’ race, I’ll ride it!”“Oh, who’s this messaging me? It’s Michael, that’s nice... I like talking to Michael... What’sthis? You’ve produced a titanium Fat Bike, you wonder if I’ll help take some photos of it?Sure I’d love too... oh you’ve just built it in time for this year’s D2D race... ahhhh...yeah..... Erm.... yeah I know, I remember what I said...”

It looks Amazing; I’m not the only one who thinks this. The amount of attention it garners isgenuinely surprising. Cyclists, myself included, are usually snooty aloof types who havevery strong opinions how a bike should look, what components should be used withconversations generally limited to “seriously you use those type of pedals?” and “What doyou think? Should I keep my summer tyres on or go to mud?”

Not so with the ‘Fat Race’; “Is that titanium?”, “That looks amazing.”, “Can I pick it up? Thatweighs less than my full suspension bike!” and finally... Can I have a go?I was one of the first mountain bikers I know to sign up to the 29er philosophy; I got plenty ofstick for that but the buzz around the fat bike just doesn’t seem to polarize people in thesame way. People just love the look of it and smile, try the brakes, which are no differentfrom normal brakes, and become ever more polite as they work up the courage to see ifyou’ll let them have a go.

I’d ridden the Fat race four days before, on a footpath and a farm road while we tookphotos of it and Michael’s seriously quick looking 29er+. We figured we’d put too muchpressure in the tyres, 25psi, and just kept getting rid of more and more air until the ridestarted to feel less bouncy and more smooth. After my first sighting lap of the course Icame back and let even more air out. 10 psi in the front tyre, 13 psi in the back. I’m no racewhippet!

Eight pm, I’m lined up with the rest of the Travers Bikes team and the rest of thecompetitors. I’m up for the first two laps, as the Quad bike gets up to speed leading out theracers for the first kilometre loop I get the Fat Race rolling. It doesn’t stop rolling while I’mon course the entire night. I have ridden the Dusk 2 Dawn race four times now, and havefallen off every single race, buckling a wheel so badly it only just rotated in the fork in onewet race, sliding through mud in other and slipping on loose sand in others still. This is onmy tried and tested race bike or my trusty single speed remember, it is the first day I haveridden the ‘Fat Race’ in anger and for the entire race I put my foot down once, just as I gointo a corner a little too hot before a technical section. That’s it... one dab. I throw it withmore and more conviction as my body gets more and more tired as the night wears on andit sticks, it sticks!

I jokingly said that I wanted to cause mayhem on the course. What I thought would happenwas that people would laugh so hard that they would fall off their bikes as they passed me.Now don’t get me wrong, racing as a pair I got passed plenty, going uphill mainly but that allchanged in the technical sections. Particularly the technical sections downhill, once you getthe wheels spinning they don’t stop. The huge contact patch of the tyre deforming to ignoreroots, sink into the well of a berm or grip and hold solid over Thetford sand, as soon as wegot into the technical single track sections the “Fat Race” flew. More and more often Iwould be smashing through the undergrowth calling my line as I passed slower riders orlistened to the pants and swearing of the faster riders as they lost their bottle as I just hit thenext corner at full pace or was taken over a lip of a ditch with the massive inertia of thewheels. It was me who was laughing maniacally. Through the night I would have lines ofless confident riders or riders running in the solo category tuck in behind me on the lessspeedy sections using the predictable pace of bike as a metronome for their heroic efforts,at other times I had race whippets coming passed at the end of a technical section, calling

Then, surprisigly, it was all over. My teammate and I had completed the race, ticked offmore laps of the course then we had ever done before and had an absolute scream doingit. I was less beat up then usual and I'd talked with more people through the night than myprevious races put together. I gave the "Fat Race" back to Michael, just in time to seesomeone else sit on it and ride it round the field, just to test the brakes of course. Yeah......IDefinitely don't want a fat bike.